


An Old Soldier

by deathwailart



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Mercenaries, Science Fiction, Soldiers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2012-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-16 21:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/507072/chapters/892341">this</a> universe</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Old Soldier

So an old soldier then, not in years but in that 'I have seen some shit and then some' way. The kind of soldier who knows they won't find the answers at the bottom of a bottle but it's the only way to get through a long night or day if it's shaping up to be a bad one. Grab a beer or something stronger, knock it back, get up and train or get sent to some damn hellhole, slog through it, fight through traps or waves of enemies, wash, rinse, repeat. Mix it up by pretending to be normal or trying to remember how to be normal, how to live. Existing isn't living, big difference there. Collect scars the way most folk collect souvenirs and yeah, there's a story behind them but the story is usually just about a time you fucked up. Dropped your guard, got sloppy, not fast enough to get out of the way or get the kill shot in first. They're reminders that you came too close, death looking you in the eye before it kept going. Might not be a next time.  
  
That's her life. Wasn't always her life though.  
  
Once she was a merc; knew slums, knew hopelessness in the pits, poverty, desperation, depravity. Most of them no better than warzones, same fetid stink of filth, death and fear, same sounds, just as much at stake to everyone trapped their as the ones doing the fighting. Just as many merc warlords in the slums as there are out in the rest of the universe, all fighting – only intimidation or personal for a warlord themselves, all the dirty work to other men and women – to control some shitty piece of land and the resources; slums had people, cheap labour, drugs, sex, alcohol. More lucrative than tracts of land or water. She used to throw her lot in with merc captains and warlords, honed skills that give her an edge now she's legit. Thing is that there's nothing noble about fighting, anyone saying otherwise is a poor deluded bastard who'll end up a bitter old drunk pushing everyone away or blowing their brains out against the wall. Fighting is messy, dying messier. There's no dignity when you die. Even if they stay composed there's blood or worse leaking out, broken bones, ruined flesh, if they're crying it's tears, snot, spit, wet sounds, gasping, screaming, moaning. She's seen a lot of death.  
  
No matter how well a fighter, a merc, a soldier gets fixed up, they're still damaged. Scars, rough patches, rasp to the voice, clicks and pops on the move. She's got a shoulder that doesn't roll right anymore, hurts in the cold, in the damp, gets stiff when she's flat on the ground with her sniper rifle. All of that courtesy of a dislocation in the field and having it rammed back in place with no ceremony. Damage was done once she was moving again, endorphins and adrenaline powering her through it. Wrenched knees, rolled ankles, minor tears and fractures, she's had plenty of those. Not all of them matter so much anymore. They fixed a lot with those improvements and modifications they performed to turn her into a better soldier. The kind of mods that left her with migraines, light sensitivity, a constant need to work out lest muscle atrophy kink in. So she pounds the deck of the ship at night because she sure as hell can't sleep. The kicker is that they don't know what those mods will do in the future. They're counting on them dying long before any sort of old age kicks in so they won't have to answer awkward and uncomfortable questions. Because soldiers with these mods are sent into the very worst places, mostly because they can handle it but also because they'll die there or after extraction in the end.  
  
Not like she has issues with that. She's thirty-five and a killing machine, gets paid to go to dangerous places. She loves it.  
  
This is her life now, the crew she serves with taking the place of distant family members that she only talks to in sporadic bursts, a cut of her pay scheduled to be sent off. Making sure her brothers aren't following exactly in her footsteps, making sure ma finally has all the nice things she deserves after a life of hard graft. Ma asks about a special someone – hasn't given up hope that her eldest, her only daughter, will stop with the high risk work, settle down and have kids. Amalia's thirty-five, her life is set now. Maybe there's one person, a soldier – no fraternisation regs, not after they started losing too many good men and women to them – in her life but not in a way she can define. Not in a way she wants to define. Someone as blunt as her. Hard lines, jagged edges. Just as marked by life.  
  
They say 'don't die' to each other before missions. Not because it's the right thing to say or because they're friends or crewmates but because they _get it_. Different lives but they understand what happened, what was left after. Uncomfortable, sure. Messy, definitely. Picking themselves and each other apart, snapping, snarling. The line between love and hate means jack shit. Neither wants to be left alone though, not with people who understand but don't. Whatever this is, it works. Works the same way her life always has, imperfect, rough around the edges, bloody. Always shady. He's close enough to hurt. She runs through all the ways they could kill one another when they're that close, honed to perfectly lethal weapons.   
  
Feels old with him, feels so damn old, weary ache in reinforced bones, lying awake with a pounding migraine and old regrets, ghosts of gunshots and her father's laugh echoing. But he gets one huge hand (it'd be so easy for him to choke her with it) around the back of her neck, thumb at the base of her skull to rub the ache away. She smiles against his skin, he huffs out a laugh. Tomorrow might be hell in a hundred different ways or she might pick a fight just because she can when it feels so fucking domestic with him. Or she'll tweak the sight on her old pistol, wrapped up in her old man's jacket, drinking until everything burns. Right now she'll take comfort where she finds it, remember how to feel human again, fitting in her skin until maybe even she believes that she's okay and not just a monster of old scars and insecurities, all the things she hates festering within her threatening to burst free and devour her.


End file.
